


the moon that breaks the night

by scintilla10



Category: Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, Little Red Riding Hood (Fairy Tale)
Genre: F/F, Fairy Tale Retellings, Fandom Stocking 2017, Femslash, Happy Ending, Horror (minor), Humour, Queer Fairy Tale, Werewolves, some violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-03-01 14:13:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13296585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scintilla10/pseuds/scintilla10
Summary: In which a werewolf on a hunt meets a baker making a delivery in the woods.





	the moon that breaks the night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> Dear 31_rabbits -- happy fandom stocking! I hope you enjoy this. :)
> 
> Content note: This story does have some elements of horror and violence, though no explicitly graphic depictions. None of the other Archive Content Warnings apply. Please feel free let me know if you would like more detailed warnings about anything.

“Oh!” someone said. “Er, hello. Naked. Um. Sorry. Hello.”

Lu stood up, rolled the kink out of her neck, and turned to face the person standing on the path.

As far as paths went, this one was dark and overgrown, and had clearly fallen into disuse. There was a reason Lu had chosen this spot to shift, after all. She had excellent self-control, thank you very much.

As far as people went, this one was dark as well, with wide brown eyes and very pretty features. But far from being overgrown, her appearance was sleek and fashionable. She wore a colourful, patterned dress with a scooped collar that showed off the skin of her long neck, and held a coat over one arm. She was also wearing a very cute pair of low red heels that Lu immediately coveted. Overall, perhaps not the most practical outfit to wear on a walk in the woods, but as Lu was currently naked, she didn’t have much of a leg to stand on.

The young woman was twisting her hands together awkwardly. She let her gaze drift over Lu’s body before she snapped her attention away to a particularly ordinary birch off to the right. She gazed at it with fixed determination.

“You, er, um. Do you have any, uh, clothes?”

“Not unless I carry them with me on my patrol,” Lu pointed out. Her abuela had taught her to leave caches of clothes throughout her territory for just this kind of situation. But they were a long distance from Lu’s territory now, and Lu had never bothered to carry a sack of clothes around with her as some in her pack did.

The young woman looked confused. She made very deliberate eye contact, as though refusing to allow her eyes to drop below Lu’s neck. “Oh -- ah, right,” she said. “Would you like to borrow my coat?”

Lu wasn’t particularly bothered either way. But it would be nice not to have to continue such aggressive eye contact, and, to be honest, she wouldn’t say no to the opportunity to step closer and surreptitiously smell the young woman’s hair.

“I’m Scarlett,” the young woman said, once Lu had buttoned the very smart red pea coat over her naked skin. “Are you, er, from around here?”

The coat smelled as good as Scarlett had, like warm bread and yeast. “Not exactly,” Lu said. “I’m tracking something.”

“Like, a person?” Scarlett hazarded. “While naked?”

“Something like that,” Lu said vaguely. Humans were odd about magic stuff, and it was often better not to confuse them too much. “I’m Lu,” she added. “What are you doing in the woods?”

“Making a delivery,” Scarlett said, indicating the bag she carried under her arm. “I’m a baker,” she added, as though she didn’t realized she smelled like a warm, cozy kitchen with bread rising in the ovens.

Lu nodded carefully, as though making deliveries of baked goods to remote locations deep in the woods via overgrown paths was a perfectly usual thing for a person to be doing. Scarlett didn’t smell anxious or fearful or anything that made Lu think she wasn’t being truthful.

“I have to admit I’m a bit lost, though,” Scarlett added, with a bright, hopeful look on her face. “I don’t suppose you know your way around?”

Lu had never been in this part of the woods, but finding her way around was something she was pretty good at. 

“Where are you trying to go?” she said.

~~~

Before they struck out again, Scarlett produced a fluffy and buttery roll and gave it to Lu. It was still a little warm and utterly delicious.

She then dug a pair of very sensible walking shoes out of her bag and offered them to Lu. “I thought I was nearly there,” she said sheepishly, indicating her red heels. “And I like to make a good impression with clients.”

Lu wouldn’t have minded wearing the red shoes either, but she gratefully accepted the other pair. She had pretty solid calluses on the bottom of her feet that could protect her soles reasonably well over short distances, but nothing beat shoes for human feet. A particular inconvenience of human form, in Lu’s opinion. Paw pads were far superior for travel.

As her abuela liked to say, “Four legs for walking, two legs to barter.” As a child, Lu had preferred wolf form when they went to the market; the smells were sharper and better, and you didn’t have to carry a heavy bag home. That had not been popular with her abuela, who was firmly of the opinion that Lu learn to interact with as many humans as she did werewolves.

Scarlett and Lu were soon on their way. It didn’t take Lu long to realize that the overgrown path they were following and the trail Lu had been tracking were leading to the same place. The hair on the back of her neck stood up, and she glanced back at Scarlett.

Scarlett was biting her lip, but when she saw Lu looking at her, she smiled. “Getting a bit dark, isn’t it?” she said.

It wasn’t yet sunset, but the forest was growing more dense and tangled, and the sunlight struggled to filter through the heavy canopy. Scarlett shivered. Even she could sense what they were walking towards, Lu realized. 

“Would you like your coat back?” she offered solicitously.

Scarlett blinked. “Oh no,” she said. “That’s all right. Please keep it. Um.”

“I don’t get cold easily,” Lu explained.

Scarlett bit her lip. “Well, it looks very good on you,” she said sincerely, and then ducked her head, embarrassed.

Lu favoured her with her biggest grin, and kept walking.

She knew when they were reaching the location for Scarlett’s delivery, because even in human form she could smell the way the forest’s magic was knotted and tangled and messy. There was something very old and very dark up ahead, and Lu knew without a doubt it was the same thing she’d been tracking for weeks.

As they came on a small clearing with a squat little house at the centre, she thought about telling Scarlett to stay on the path. She didn’t want Scarlett anywhere near the twisted, angry energy emanating from the house. Humans were very vulnerable creatures and the thing in the house was -- malevolent.

Lu turned around. Scarlett was looking at the house uncertainly. “I guess this must be the place,” she said, but she looked at Lu wide-eyed.

Lu could tell her not to go in there. She could even pull Scarlett away and take her back into her little town and maybe Scarlett would invite her home so they could eat more of the yummy baked goods in the basket and drink a glass of wine. And maybe Lu could lean over and kiss her soft, wine-stained lips, and put her hands in Scarlett’s dark silky hair …

Her abuela always told her that there was a reason the right people congregated in a time and place of great power. Lu knew that meant both she and Scarlett should be here, in this moment, to face whatever was ahead.

So she did not listen to her fearful, tender heart, and she said, “Let’s go up together.”

And Scarlett came with her, hesitantly but bravely, up to the door. Lu knocked the traditional three times.

“Who’s there?” came the answer from inside the house. The leaves on the dark trees around them shivered at the sound, and Lu felt something dark and terrible rumble inside the house. 

She glanced at Scarlett. From the look on her face, she knew something else going on, but she didn’t run. She opened her mouth to call out, “I’m from the bakery.” There was fear in her eyes, but her voice was unwavering. Lu gripped her arm, overwhelmed with her bravery.

“Come inside, so I can see you, my dear,” said the voice. It was polished and lilting, but with a greasy darkness underneath, tar-like and horrid.

Scarlett looked at Lu, her eyes wide.

“Why don’t you come out here,” Lu said. She carefully toed off the walking shoes, one after the other.

There was a hiss. “Who are youuu?” said the creature.

“You know me,” Lu said, low and sharp. “You’ve sensed me coming for days now. Well, I’m here. Don’t you want to face me at last?”

Scarlett was gripped Lu’s hand, her fingers digging painfully into Lu’s palm. Lu drew them both back away from the door.

When it opened, the dark shape that filled the doorway wasn’t human. Darkness curled around the shape of it like tendrils of smoke. The malevolence of its gaze fell on them like a physical weight, and Scarlett gasped, her hand to her mouth. Lu growled, low in her throat, and realized, with a sudden knife of fear, that she couldn’t move.

“Ahhhh, it’s you, wolf-girl,” hissed the creature. Its eyes glowed yellow-orange out of the darkness, and it sounded pleased with itself. 

There was no light at all in the clearing anymore; the darkness of the house had consumed all the light into itself. Lu couldn’t move her body, couldn’t shift, couldn’t think. Next to her, Scarlett’s heavy breathing was the only thing she could hear.

“Lucky me,” said the creature, silky and dangerous. “A feast.”

Two things happened almost at the same time.

With a yell, Scarlett pulled a flashlight out of her bag and turned the sweep of golden yellow light onto the creature. In the sudden illumination, the shrivelled, twisted body at the centre of the darkness was abruptly visible before it shied back, shielding its eyes with a yelp.

Suddenly able to move with the creature distracted, Lu shifted and went for its throat. It screamed, and Lu stubbornly held on as darkness swept over her in crashing, pressing waves.

Some time later, Lu became aware that Scarlett was yelling at her. “Don’t you dare, don’t you dare, you shit-for-brains wolf -- oh my _god_ \--”

Lu winced and sat up. She had shifted back to human. Weak sunlight was cutting thinly through the heavy trees, and Scarlett was sitting beside her, gripping her hand, tears staining her face. “Oh my god, oh my god,” she was saying.

Lu managed a smile for her, and Scarlett laid her forehead against Lu’s, so close that Lu could feel Scarlett’s breath on her face. “I was so scared,” she said, her voice soft. “I’m so glad you’re all right.”

Lu reached up to touch Scarlett’s face with her palm, and Scarlett leaned into it, closing her eyes. Scarlett’s skin was warm, and so soft.

Lu glanced down at her own body. Aching muscles. A deep cut on her leg. That might need stitching up. Otherwise, not so bad. 

“I’m sorry about your coat,” she said. The smart red peacoat was torn and shredded; clothes didn’t tend to do well during a shift. 

“Oh my god, I don’t give a goddamn about that coat!” Scarlett said.

“It’s a really nice coat,” Lu objected, and Scarlett started laughing.

Lu laughed too, suddenly bursting with happiness to be sitting in the woods next to someone who shone so brightly when she smiled.

Scarlett helped Lu to her feet. She had a small picnic blanket in her apparently limitless bag, which she gently helped Lu wrap around her body. Lu didn’t mind her own nakedness one bit, but she also didn’t mind Scarlett’s warm hands against her skin, so she allowed it.

The house in the clearing looked empty now, abandoned and lonely. Nothing inhabited it any longer. The forest magic was still all tangled up around the clearing, but the anger and hatred were gone. The place could heal.

“What was that -- thing?” Scarlett asked. 

“Something old,” Lu said. “And hateful.”

Scarlett shivered and nodded. She looked at Lu, hesitatingly. “I would -- would you like to come back home with me?” she asked. She hurriedly added, “I can make some dinner for us. And it’s almost dark if you need someplace to, uh, stay the night.”

She was flushed and nervous, her heartbeat fluttering rapidly in her throat. Humans were so vulnerable, Lu thought, suddenly anxious herself, and wary.

Then she thought of Scarlett gathering the strength of will to throw the beam of the flashlight into the very heart of paralyzing darkness, and she wanted to curl her body against Scarlett’s for as long as she was welcome.

There was some kind of joke to be made about lone wolves searching for a pack, but Lu wasn’t about to fall into that kind of cliché.

“I would be honoured,” she said gravely, and Scarlett smiled at her. 

“Then it would be my pleasure,” she said, and she took Lu’s hand in hers, and led them both unerringly along the path home.


End file.
